


Eyes Wide Open

by AvaCelt



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Drabble Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 08:31:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaCelt/pseuds/AvaCelt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a graphic by <a href="http://theoryofthevanquished.tumblr.com/post/56451620086/why-dont-you-sleep-he-murmurs-softly-we">Monoire</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I don’t get to sleep often,” he admits, allowing his head to press against the warmth of the pillow on the bed.

“I don’t sleep,” the latter offers as a gesture of good faith. “So you can sleep here whenever you want.”

The man nods softly as he begins to doze off, only barely sensing the latter as he pulls the covers up to his chest.

“Why don’t you sleep?” He murmurs softly. “We barely have time because of the fighting, and our circuits don’t need the rest our minds want.”

The latter smiles softly while thumbing his warm skin. He blinks. The latter’s skin is cold.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve dreamed,” the other says. “So long that I’ve forgotten since.”

He stays quiet, blinking wearily, feeling the systems in his body begin to shut down. Suho involuntarily shudders.

Luhan chuckles, pulling the covers higher. Suho squirms, attempting to regain whatever bit of dignity he has left, but the latter simply grins as he coaxes him to fall asleep with the quiet curves of his lips.

“You’ll wake me up?” Suho asks, eyes slipping shut, memories of pain and blood drifting away as something pleasant and soft begins to permeate throughout his being.

“Yes.” Luhan’s fingers flutter a top his eyelids, and he lets him, finally slipping into an unconsciousness that he’s waited years for to come.

He sleeps forever like most do when the angel of death asks them to. He sleeps with a smile.


	2. Dorawa

“It’s unpleasant down there,” Suho warned. “The Prince is safer up here.” He gestured at the spacious room with a balcony that looked out to the pagoda where the King and his wives slept.

“But I heard you get to blow things up and tell people what to do!” Luhan clapped his hands together, as if the information he’d acquired were things to be proud of.

“I don’t know who told the Prince that,” he began, “but I can assure him that they are baseless lies.”

Luhan giggled into his eyes, his eyes crinkling with mirth. “I saw you in your battle gear,” he sing-song’ed. “I want to see you in it again!”

Suho hardened his glare. “I’m afraid not.”

Luhan pouted. “But you looked ama-”

“-the Prince should sleep now,” he cut off.

Luhan flinched. “It can’t be that bad…”

But the man was gone. Luhan blinked twice before frantically looking about his chambers. He ran to and fro, out the door and down the hall, opening door after door without a single other thought.

“Prince should sleep,” an old maid advised. She wiped the door knob to a particular room that was empty but frequently burst into.

“I want to see him,” he demanded.

“You will,” she soothed. “Someday.”

Luhan wearily turned back to his chambers. They were empty. The pagoda still stood where it always did.

“The Prince must promise never to ask again, or I shall cease.” The ghostly finger rested on top of his cheeks.

“But I want to see you in your helm and your suit,” he insisted.

“You did,” the other said. “Once. And then…”

Luhan blinked wearily into nothingness. “You’ve been gone for so long.”

“It happens when you leave the castles and tread below.”

“I just wanted to see you,” Luhan said.

He disappeared again, and this time, Luhan was truly alone. He walked towards the balcony and stared down. All the way down. Past the steps of the pagoda opposite to his tower. All the way down. Below where the blood was spilled and the bodies piled up.

Where Suho’s corpse was still waiting to be laid to rest.

“I’ll see you,” he promised. “One day, I’ll wear your old clothes and meet you out there, OK?” A gentle breeze fluttered and tickled Luhan’s nose. He smiled. “It’s a promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dorawa means “come back" in Hangul.


	3. Of Wants and Needs

“Can you feel?”

Joon Myun doesn’t quite know how to answer that. He wants to say yes. He feels the physical after-effects of being beaten half to death, or shot, or thrown against random objects until his uniform is torn to shreds and his helmet is cracked while the skin and flesh beneath is bloodied and marred. He wants to tell the latter that it hurts to breathe most nights, and that despite the extensive repairs, he still can’t get rid of the scars embedded into his mind, and certainly not the ones carved into his soul.

“Yes.”

It’s a half truth, regardless. Sure, he’s never felt the touch of another’s meant solely to pleasure and coax him into warmth and kindness. He’s never felt warm lips press against the base of his throat and travel upwards until the plump buds reach his own and press earnestly against them. He’s never had hands help pull his sweater over his head and tell him that they are happy endings amiss because that’s how most stories were meant to finish.

“Don’t lie to me.”

He bites his lip, and suddenly, he feels small underneath the figure who’s thinner and almost as pale as he is. Their nudity doesn’t faze him, because repairs in front of dozens of others and along with other soldiers have long since hardened him against whatever shame he may have had left. But he’s never felt helpless before, and not underneath someone who’s as clean and soft to the touch as warm milk. He looks down to his flawless skin and wants to put a hand over his beating chest. He wants to curl up and fall asleep, and he wants to forget that there’s perfection hovering over something as recyclable as himself. He’s never felt so _naked_.

“I’m human.”

It’s a fact. He’s a human being who’s been equipped with the best weaponry to fight the most ruthless of those opposing the New World. He has a heart; he has a soul. He has wires in his fingers, and a chip clipped somewhere in his brain, and disks and plates that line up against the inside of his skin. But his heart is still his. It still beats because it wants to, and when it stops, so will he. Because he is human and he is susceptible to death just like the rest of the world. That’s why he can feel.

“I’m not.”

The latter is not. He knows this, which is why laying bare underneath him is so wrong. Worse- it’s not a part of protocol. It’s something he _wants_ to participate in. No one told him to relieve himself of his uniform, put on a sweater and a pair of jeans, and climb up the mountain that housed the demon at its top. No one told him to seduce the demon into desiring his body and soul. No one told him to want to _feel_.

“It’s OK.”

It is, Joon Myun insists to himself. If he can spend nights hunting enemy soldiers and not get any compensation for it, then he can choose to spend the evening in a monster’s bed. There isn’t much of a difference anyway, Joon Myun thinks. They’re both figures fit for destruction. One just happened to be an immortal while the other one was as disposable as a sheet of paper torn wildly from a book.

“I want to make you feel.”

Joon Myun blinks. “But I can feel.”

The demon shakes its head, and the golden brown hair flits softly with it. “Love. I want you to feel love.”

“It’s not something we’re obligated to understand,” he admits. “But if you’re willing to teach me, then I want to learn.”

Its intense gaze bores into Joon Myun’s, and he feels himself getting smaller. But then something stirs inside as a hand ghosts up the inside of his thighs.

Lips as pink as the sky at dawn press softly against Joon Myun’s, and he lets out a breath of relief mixed with content. It’s a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Let me love you,” it says.

Joon Myun parts his legs enough to let the latter settle in between them. The physical contact is nothing, as he’s bared himself in front of too many to even care. But his hands are shaky as they clutch the crisp sheets underneath when all the demon’s done is sit. He looks on as the sensitive skin of his thighs make contact with flesh he’s only ever had the pleasure of looking at.

Hands knead his shoulders, his chest, the turgid flesh of his nether regions before they reach his waist and lift his hips off the bed.

And then it stops.

“Love me,” he says. It’s not breathy, or lust-driven, or as frightened as his hands are. It’s a simple command- a command no mortal should be making to one who’s fit to be a god.

The feeling is different, but once they’re finished, he finds it to be familiar. It’s as if he’d been waiting for it his entire life.

“Let me love you forever,” it says.

Joon Myun doesn’t know how long forever is, or whether it even matters. He lets his fingers drift over the hairless chest and the stomach devoid of a bellybutton.

“I love you,” he tries. It’s the best he can do.

The demon nods, urging him to drift off on its chest. Joon Myun knows he shouldn’t. If he does, he might not want to get up, and then he’d truly be abandoning all protocol.

He had to leave.

“Sleep, my sweet prince.”

Joon Myun wants to tell it that he’s no prince. He’s a a mere soldier out of a million other soldiers, and that the only special thing about him is that he can use a canon blaster really well and hasn’t died on the last hundred odd missions he’s been sent off to. He’s as damaged and needed as he looks- and as easily disposable. Joon Myun wants to tell it that he’s not worth it.

“OK.”

But this isn’t protocol, and come morning, he knows the demon will refuse to let him leave. At first, the idea of being trapped in bloodless monotony with nothing but snow and birds to accompany him was something to fear. But now.

A hand closes over his shoulder, and now he doesn’t feel naked; he feels complete. Something sings in the night, drowning out the bloodbaths taking place at the foot of the mountain.

And Joon Myun feels oddly at peace, so he sleeps. He sleeps, like princes are supposed to. He sleeps, like his demon tells him to.

He sleeps with a smile.


End file.
